Smartphone Shipments in China Faced with First Decline in Six Years

We’ve all been super hyped with the latest smartphones these past years, haven’t we? I mean, since Steve Jobs revealed the first iPhone back in 2007, every manufacturer went crazy and started expanding this industry, building all sorts of smart devices in an attempt to draw more customers.

During this time, the smartphone industry has flourished from all the hype. However, nowadays we have smartphones that pretty much handle most stuff we do on our PCs or laptops. So does this inspire you to upgrade as you were eager to do in the past? Yeah… I thought so.

The same results seem to show in a study made by research firm IDC, indicating that Chinese smartphone shipments have dropped for the first time in six years. They noted that Q1 2015 shipments have dropped 4% since Q1 2014 and 8% since Q4 2014. Figures show only 98.8 million units shipped this Q1, which is the first time since Q4 2013 that shipments fall below the 100 million mark.

Apple is still the top smartphone vendor in China with 14.7% market shares, which is not surprising at all, followed by Xiaomi and Huawei with 13.7% and 11.4% respectively. IDC expects a flat growth for the Chinese smartphone market this year, but some good can come of all this (at least for the consumer).

Given the figures, Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo might switch from their usual entry-level smartphones to more higher-spec devices to give customers a reason for upgrading their phones.

Also, the latter companies would be pushed to strongly consider expanding beyond the Chinese border and into markets that are now dominated by Samsung, HTC and others. So if you wanted to see that Xiaomi smartphone that caught your eye in stores outside of China, I don’t think you need to wait very long.